I love a good sauce over vegetables, meat or fish and they don’t all have to be calorie laden or made with cream and more cream although I love a good cream and wine sauce with some mushrooms.

A basic sauce is generally used to make other variations of the original sauce. The French take credit for initially perfecting what is now universally recognised and categorised into one of the 5 groups of sauces and any chef who is classically trained will be taught to perfect these sauces…

I am self taught and learnt much at my mother’s knee but I can make a mean sauce or three.

A good restaurant will prepare the basic sauce in large batches to use as a foundation to make individual servings that are seasoned and flavoured separately but using one of the 5 mother sauces as…